judge not, lest ye be judged

His grandfather pointed to a tree in an abandoned field. The lynching tree. Trey could hear the slurs, sense the kicks and punches, feel the rope tighten. . .

A man approached, shotgun in hand: “What y’all doin’ here?” Trey moved to protect Grandfather: “My son hung from that tree. Showing his son.”

The man put down his gun and offered his hand to Grandfather. “I’m Tom, keeper of the tree. Folks shouldn’t forget horrible things my daddy and his daddy did here. Some come to fell it. Shouldn’t. It’s a monument to the men who felt horrors of hate. Sorry about your son.”

I’ve been doing historical vignettes as an a to z project at my pace. I intended to write a story with k = Klan and l = lynching, but with all the horrible events of late, it was too close to the bone. Then judge not, lest you be judged for Moral Monday, and my story seemed to fit with the theme. Though I’m afraid it may be too subtle in 100 words. But my vignettes are restricted to 100 words, so I’m responsible for the vagueness at either way.

17 thoughts on “judge not, lest ye be judged”

“Thank you. Knowing history as I do, we really do repeat the same mistakes, become the same mobs and killers. That’s what sends shivers. This reverberates back through time,” she sighed. “Hatred never seems to die, while understanding and compassion seem to so easily slip away,” she added.

“We need to remember where hate has taken us — from lynching trees, genocide in Europe and Africa to the ovens at Auschwitz. Monuments to those who died because of their “race” or “ethnicity”. The Genome Project proved we are all one family. It’s time everyone recognized that,” she sighed.

It’s so heartbreaking to look back at our tragic past, but knowing history means learning from it. Unfortunately, I fear that history is repeating itself. Now is not the time to be willfully ignorant about the issues of today and days past. This story definitely gives me hope.

“Thank you. We do need hope. Hatred is such a powerful emotion, that rolls like a snowball down a hill. I am so saddened by all the deaths of innocent people due to hatred” she replied. “I thought you picked an important moral for what’s going on,” she added.